April 22nd 2008

The truth about wall street and government fraud. Gunther Karger. 2005. ISBN 0964597934. This is one of those books you pick up and immediately think – the guy is slightly off. Lots of capitals, bold print and exclamation marks. Self published. Yet his credentials and govt/lg company/Wall Street experiences check out and his references are there when you check them. Is this the “one honest man?” Published in 2005 he predicts the Asset Backed Securities fraud. One scenario he lays out is very “scared straight”.

So OPEC is all Muslim countries except Venezuela (and he really loves America). Saudi Arabia is the biggest member of OPEC. In the late ’90s oil was $10-$20 dollars a barrel if OPEC could reduce production.

So if oil goes up in price , who benefits? Iraq invades Kuwait/American responds = $30 oil. Wait a minute if there is war in the Middle East oil goes up . So guess what happens?

9/11 – America responds =$50 oil. US invades Afghanistan =$70 oil. Saddam threatens to sell his oil in Euros not dollars. US invades Iraq = now $100 oil. Surprise , now Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia are all Shi’iite led. Saudis were the bulk of Bin Landins troops. Iran supports Hamas and Hezbolla with millions. None of these countries appear to embrace democracy.

China consumes 1/20th of the oil that the US does. So it’s not them driving up the price. So OPEC pulls an extra $150B more out of US after 9/11 and presently over $300 B US annually each yr out of the the US , for the same amount of oil since’90. This is over 2% of the US GNP. Remove it and the US GNP is almost at depression levels.

So if a new US Republican president is elected (McCain) who believes that wars can be won and keeps at it, what can happen to the price of oil? Who really benefits? What price is a compromise now? The Democrats are even further away. They do not even have a plan. You can buy the book from www.guntherkarger.com. He has a bunch of stuff, and is no dummy. I was surprised at how much sense he made , from Enron, Dan , Chapter 11 and so on.